Watched Dune last Friday. It was a very well crafted sci-fi epic, I knew nothing about the universe before going in. I was pleasantly surprised, yet I hope to learn more of the world and it’s factions in the next chapter. At the end of the day, I’m going to hold it up to his Bladerunner film. A film I find to be the better movie and overall most engaging of the two.
4 Likes
I just watched Bernie, it was a biographical film starring Jack Black in a dramatic role.
It’s about the case of a really nice and generous man who everyone in the town loved but was charged with murder, and how everyone in the town wanted him acquitted for it.
This was a real trial and it’s all just messed up.
5 Likes
That’s a great movie! And Jack Black acts so brilliant in it.
3 Likes
So, I just saw #No Time To Die. Please be aware of spoilers. 
The film concludes the Craig’s era. It was worth the wait. 
The villain plans to spread… a DNA virus (Caruso virus!!). Did MGM screenwriters play HITMAN ? 
I liked how the movie connects with “Casino Royale”, Bond paying his respect for Vesper (his past love) 
and Felix Leiter making a last appearance.
The part in Cuba is really enjoyable with Ana de Armas at her best 
and the game of rival secret agents with the new OO7, Nomi. 
Now, the whole evil organization of Spectre is destroyed, even Blofeld through a good twist. 
Another vilain emerged, even if his motivations are quite obscure. 
(Only revenge ?)
The scenes in Norway in the dark forest are the best for me. 
The film is more mature in the end, considering that James has to protect… his family with Madeleine and Mathilde. 
The end is for me the heroic sacrifice of the hero. 
Bond, who was infected, chose to stay on the island while the missiles are hitting it. These are the symbols of verticality (=masculinity) that overcome him ♂, his virility that kills him someway. Hollywood’s decision.
This leaves room for new challenges, new actors.
Thank you, Daniel Craig. 
For England, James.
4 Likes
Saw the movie on Monday. Really good although a little bit lengthy in the second part of it. Craig great as always – best Bond in my book. Didn’t like the vilains, the motivation just wasn’t plausible for me. Not as great as “Spectre” but a close second. Great end for the Craig-Era.
3 Likes
I recently saw we were soldiers
It’s a violent movie about the Ia Drang Valley incident in Vietnam, the first proper engagement between the Americans and Northern Vietnamese.
It’s all about military strategy, and you will frequently see the commanders of both sides examine the situation and adapt, which was really interesting if you’re into military strategy.
I’d recommend it if you’ve got a strong stomach, because once the shooting starts, it’s basically nonstop violence until the end.
3 Likes
I watched the new Bond movie. I rather enjoyed it, actually
6 Likes
2 out of 3 films in October on my list have now been crossed off the list. Started with ‘Dune’ and now ‘No Time To Die’ next Halloween Kills.
‘No Time To Die’ was a great spy thriller movie, that managed to top the lukewarm Spectre. A good conclusion to Daniel Craig’s Bond, with a interesting premise. I liked how they played with 007 angle and it’s overall meaning towards Bond, In many ways it was a very self-aware James Bond with some of the classic clichés played for laughs.
However In the grand scheme of the picture I would rank it the 3th best film in the Craig era. The Soundtrack by Billie Eilish I would only ranked as the 4th best overall, with Quantum Of Solace’s Another Way to Die scoring the lowest. With You Know My Name by Chris Cornell as my number 1.
- Skyfall,
- Casino Royal,
- No Time To Die,
- Quantum Of Solace
- Spectre.
7 Likes
i just can’t get past how they treated severine:
tells bond “i was a sex slave”, gets seduced (because victims of sex trafficking are always available, apparently), gets shot in the head during a dick measuring contest… and is promptly forgotten about.
like, the way the military choppers come in and pick everyone up really quickly just left me wondering whether they even bothered with severine’s corpse.
really soured me on the whole film. id expect that shit from classic bond but not a modern one.
5 Likes
You wrote this in the wrong thread: https://www.hitmanforum.com/t/completely_and_utterly_wrong_opinion
3 Likes
Ah well, when the topic is about Bond girls, very few around me irl talk about her. It’s indeed too bad that she didn’t get as much screen time as other female characters. Considering the plot, the lead female character of Skyfall can only be Judi Dench’s Madam M. Her conversation with Bond and Silva, and especially her speech at the parliament were executed well!
2 Likes
Just got back from seeing No Time to Die myself. Got rather mixed feelings about it… There´re some really great bits in it, Dencik and de Armas are awesome, but the whole thing just gets dragged down for me by all the plot and character-related baggage (or rather garbage) it´s been carrying around since - well - basically Casino Royale. And Craig and Seydoux have no chemistry between them imo, which is something that already bothered me in Spectre quite a lot, and makes the supposedly emotional ending feel stupid and annoying to me.
The fact I forgot she was a sex slave just reminds me of how forgettable she actually was. Anyways…
Well, Skyfall was very much a throwback to the classics in many ways, though I doubt this in particular was an intended effect 
5 Likes
it’s less about screen time and more about the callous and shallow character arc. i found it really grim!
i don’t blame you; bond forgets her about ten seconds after the light leaves her eyes.
it was so egregious i expected them to make a thing of it further in, but no such luck.
4 Likes
Her only purpose was to help introduce the main villain to Bond. She played no actual role beyond that, so the manner of her departure and Bond’s lack of comment afterward aren’t really relevant to anything else going on. She served her purpose. The only reason she was even a female character was so Bond would have someone to seduce; she could have been played by a male character and if you toss out the seduction aspect, you get the same purpose and same results.
Meanwhile I couldn’t stop thinking about one thing during No Time To Die.
2 Likes
you’re talking about the raw narrative mechanics there, which isn’t what i took issue with.
that’s a pretty icky choice of words, given what transpires.
3 Likes
What was the issue then, as that’s escaping me.
the callous treatment of the character and the subject matter associated with her.
they used sex trafficking to ostensibly provide extra depth, real world topical/gritty relevance, and some sympathy to a one dimensional narrative device, then had bond immediately have sex with her (she said she was a sex slave from a disgustingly early age just beforehand), and then had her brutally killed in a game between two alpha males, and very promptly forgotten about.
3 Likes
Ok, I get the issue with the sex slave part, but that can be brushed off as just needing to have some kind of backstory for someone involved in criminal activity without making them greedy or sociopathic. As for the manner of her death, it being part of a game between two alpha males was incidental. She was always going to be disposed of by the villain, the fact that he wanted to make a game out of it did not change that in any way, and that means was used to show just how evil and psycho the bad guy was. Since we barely knew her and she wasn’t important other than as a means of finding the bad guy, the sex slave part also works here to make audiences feel sorry for her, since we can’t care about her in any other way due to her inconsequentiality, which would have rendered her truly meaningless. Heavy-handed, perhaps, but hardly a cinematic mortal sin. Also, she wasn’t killed brutally, she was shot in the head, a near-instant and essentially painless death, compared to how many other people die just in this movie, never mind the franchise. She was fearful, before her death, sure, which might make it cruel or sadistic, but not brutal.
Either way, I think we’re turning this into the unpopular opinions thread here.
if i could brush it off, i wouldn’t take issue with it in the first place.
i think evoking something as horrific as goddamn sex trafficking just to slightly flesh out a character in a bombastic, mindless hollywood action film is a callous and shitty thing to do. 
not wanting sex trafficking evoked callously is an unpopular opinion? huh.
3 Likes